Skip to content

6 best Instagram tips and tricks for an improved experience

With the introduction of stories and other new refinements, Instagram has become one of the popular apps for sharing your memories. Here in this post, we have collated the 6 best Instagram tips and tricks to enhance your experience.

In this post, we have divided the Instagram shortcuts and features into two segments. The first one caters to Instagram Stories only, while the second one applies to the whole app. Here are the 6 shortcuts and features to use for the Instagram Android app. You can get the app from Play Store here.

6 best Instagram tips and tricks

Shortcuts for Instagram Stories

For the uninitiated, Instagram stories are status updates that disappear after 24 hours. While these are saved to your archives, you can save your Instagram stories to your device as well. Here are a few tricks to make your stories more interesting.

Swipe Right for Story Mode

While this is not a major shortcut, it comes in handy when you have to upload a story quickly. As soon as you open the app,  you can swipe right to access the camera mode. Click an image or shoot a video from there and directly send it to ‘Your Story’ from the bottom left of the screen.

Filters and Modes

Snapchat is often considered the supreme application for filters but Instagram is also up for the challenge. Once in camera mode, you can choose from various modes and filters within the app. You can switch between Normal, Boomerang, Superzoom, and other modes by swiping right and left below the shutter button.

These being the modes, you can access filters by tapping the transparent smiley at the right side of the shutter button. This lets you choose between various filters. The above clip shows how it works.

Story Privacy

Once you get the perfect story you’re looking for, you upload it to Instagram. You can hide your stories from selected people and also set who can send you messages through the app.

Hide story Instagram

To do this, just go to the camera screen and tap on the ‘Settings’ icon at the top left of the screen. Here you will see an option saying ‘Hide Story From’ and upon tapping there, you will get a list of all the people in your feed. On this screen, you can select the people you want to hide your story from.

Hidden features in Instagram app

While the previous section was about Stories, this one talks about the full app. Here, we will tell you three features to use to make Instagram more interesting and secure. So here are the features.

Check Activities of others

Check other activity Instagram

Yes, Instagram lets you check the recent likes and comments done by the people you follow. To do this, tap the ‘♥’ tab and swipe right. Here you will see the recent likes and comments of the people you follow. If you do not swipe right, you will see the likes and comments on your posts.

Invite friends

Invite friends Instagram

While the app is all about sharing, you can invite more people you know to share memories with. Go to your profile segment and tap the three-dot menu at the top-right side of the screen. Here, you will find the ‘Invite friends’ tab from where you can invite and follow your Facebook friends as well as your phone’s contacts.

Make Account private

Another cool feature to improve your account’s privacy. You can make your account private so only those who follow you can see your posts. Not just this, if someone wants to follow you, they will have to send a request and only after your approval, your posts will be visible to the other party.

Private account Instagram

You can make your account a Private Account by going to your profile, tapping the three-dot menu at the top right. From this page, scroll down to ‘Private Account’ and turn it on.

nv-author-image

Abhishek Bhatnagar

Abhishek Bhatnagar, a known technology blogger & YouTuber from India. A Software Engineer by qualification, now he works as the editor-In-Chief, Webmaster, & Managing Director at Gadgets To Use. He runs a number of other technology websites as well.

Tags: